The present invention relates to a firefighting apparatus, and more particularly to a firefighting apparatus for use in a compartmentalized structure, such as a ship. The fire fighting apparatus of the present invention permits an operator standing in a first compartment of the ship to fight a fire burning in a second compartment of the ship. Through this arrangement, the device reduces the danger to the operator when entering the second compartment, and helps to reduce the likelihood that the fire in the second compartment will spread into the first compartment.
Fire is one of the greatest dangers facing those aboard a ship. Part of the danger of a ship-board fire results from the compartmentalized nature of the interior of most ships.
As will be appreciated by those familiar with ships, and especially warships, the interior of a ship is usually divided by bulkheads into a series of watertight compartments. These bulkheads serve as walls, floors and ceilings which define the "rooms" or compartments of a ship. Typically, doors are utilized to enable the ship's personnel to move between laterally adjacent compartments, and hatches are utilized to enable personel to move between vertically adjacent compartments. These doors, hatches and bulkheads are designed to make the individual compartments water tight, so that if a compartment becomes flooded with water, the compartment can be sealed off to prevent the water from intruding into other compartments. Confining the intrusion of water to a localized area substantially reduces the likelihood of an amount of water entering the ship sufficient to sink it.
When a fire erupts in a compartment of a ship, this compartmentalization can impede the fighting of the fire in the compartment. For example, the heat from the fire in a compartment may make it difficult or impossible to open a closed compartment door (or hatch) to enter the burning compartment to extinguish the fire. Additionally, it may be inadvisable to open the compartment door or hatch in such a situation, because by opening the door the fire may spread into an adjacent compartment.
The current procedure utilized to fight a fire in a closed compartment is to direct the spray from a fire hose on to the door of the burning compartment until the door reaches a temperature low enough to permit the firefighters to open the door. The time spent in cooling the door can permit the fire to cause damage which could have been prevented if the time spent cooling the door was not being spent on cooling the door, but instead was spent on applying water (or other fire extinguishing agent) directly on to the fire affected area.
Another problem attendant to the fighting of shipboard fires is the danger caused by exposure to the fire. When a firefighter approaches a fire in a compartment, he faces the possibility of injury from the fire, and from shrapnel caused by exploding articles in the compartment. If a firefighter could extinguish a fire without being forced to enter into the burning compartment, the likelihood of the firefighter being so injured would be reduced substantially. Even if the firefighter cannot extinguish the fire in the burning compartment completely while standing in an adjacent compartment, the risk of injury is reduced substantially by providing a water curtain in the burning compartment adjacent to the door or hatch of the compartment.
Therefore, one object of the present invention is to provide a device which permits a person standing in a first compartment to introduce a fire extinguishing agent into a second compartment to help fight a fire therein.